


Elven Acrobatics

by lavellanpls



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-23
Updated: 2016-09-23
Packaged: 2018-08-16 22:40:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8120272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lavellanpls/pseuds/lavellanpls
Summary: For the prompt: "The Inquisitor sure does jump from high places a lot."Solas wishes Lavellan would just take the path like a normal person, for once.





	

Solas feels confident in his assessment of Lavellan.

Dalish elves often rely on agility and ranged defense—two skills necessary for traveling unseen through forests. Lilith, though, rarely fits the picture of a typical Dalish elf. She is strong for her size—all tight lines and lean muscle—and tends to utilize a more hands-on style of fighting. She favors two-handed weapons and fierce, unrelenting _force,_ and Solas assumes the range of her abilities stops there. She is a brute force fighter, after all. Agility is rarely a component of such a discipline.

They’re venturing through the Hinterlands when Solas decides he is terrible at assumptions.

An inaccurately drawn map leads them to a sharp wall of rock where a mountain path was supposed to be. Varric gives a loud, trailing groan, already lining up new complaints, while Cassandra only gives an exhausted _“Ugh.”_ Lilith shields her eyes and looks up, lips screwing into a frown.

“It appears we’ll have to seek out another route, then,” Solas offers. The distance marked on their map must be skewed; he’s sure venturing farther around the base will set them back on course. “Perhaps if we go northward?”

“No, no,” Lavellan assures. “I’ve got it.” She tugs her boots off and tosses them to Cassandra. “Hold onto those for me.” She takes a moment to feel for sturdy handholds, and starts to climb.

She scales the cliff side with alarming speed, sending a hail of pebbles crumbling down when she pulls on loose rock. She has to swing her body to latch onto jutting stones too far to reach. Solas watches helplessly from below, and fights the urge to panic.

“Well, shit,” Varric says. He sounds impressed. “Is that some kind of elf thing?”

Solas has a hard time keeping the horror from his voice when he answers, plainly, “ _It is not._ ”

Lilith reaches the top of the precipice and offers a cheerful thumbs-up. “Alright,” she calls down. “Now just follow the path I took.”

He finds it exceedingly difficult to slow his racing heart.

 

* * *

 

“We’ll have to go around,” Solas observes aloud.

Their party is trekking through the Forbidden Oasis, a maze of winding canyons and sheer cliff sides, in search of more ever-elusive shards. The ocularum highlighted a shard in glittering detail only yards away, but unfortunately it lies on the other side of a narrow valley, balanced atop a crumbling plateau. If their party descends into the canyon and hikes up from the other side, he’s sure they can find a path that-

Lavellan’s eyes narrow, calculating. She counts under her breath and takes measured steps backward.

_One, two, three…_

For a single frozen instant Solas thinks, _She wouldn’t._

Apparently she would.

A strangled noise is involuntarily pulled from his throat as he watches her take a running leap and launch herself across the treacherous gap. She only barely clears it, landing hard into a rolling tumble, and hauls herself away from the ledge as rocks scrape and crumble under her boots.  She clambers to her feet, triumphant, and holds her newfound shard high in the air with a satisfied grin.

_“Got it!”_

Solas can’t seem to find his words at the moment. Fortunately Lilith coaxes them back when she tucks the shard under her arm and backs slowly up.

“ _Lilith._ ” The sternness of his voice borders dangerously on panic. “ _No._ ”

She runs and takes a flying leap.

 

* * *

 

Solas understands Lavellan is Dalish. He understands she’s spent years maneuvering through forests and mountains and other remote corners of wilderness, and that mostly she did it by herself. That does not make him feel better about her free-climbing a tree.

Their most recent mission brought them to the Emerald Graves, deep into the thick of the forest, where the trees loom like ancient giants. Lilith looks up from the base of a towering trunk with a thoughtful stare. “We need a vantage point,” she announces. “Hey, Cassandra. You have a spare axe?”

“What,” Bull asks, “you gonna chop it down and build a ladder?”

She answers, far too glibly, “Nah.”

Solas watches with dread as she grips a hand-axe in each fist, sinks one into the tree above her with a firm _thwack,_ and pulls her body up. She alternates axes, ripping one free only to bury it higher above; hauls herself up by her arms and starts again. Every so often her boots slip against the wood, footing momentarily lost, and every single time it happens Solas nearly casts barrier.

Bull shouts _“Badass!”_

Cassandra looks to Solas with an uneasy frown and asks, “You _can_ barrier her from here, can’t you?”

Far above ( _too far above)_ Lilith pauses her climb and scans the distance with narrowed eyes. Her face lights up in a grin. “So,” she calls down, “who wants to kill a _dragon_ today?”

Cassandra hits Solas in the arm with impressive force. “Just _barrier_ her already!”

Solas already has his staff ready.

 

* * *

 

Lavellan will be the death of him. He’s sure of it.

The weather on the Storm Coast lives up to its name today. Lilith leads their party northward, silvery hair damp from a frigid, unrelenting mist that seems to settle over them like a funeral pall. Solas trudges on ahead of her, keeping a sharp eye out for the telltale smoke of enemy campfires.

Suddenly Lavellan’s voice rings out in a shout. _“Templars, on the beach!”_

She races past him, and Solas is sure he risks a heart attack watching her barrel down a rocky, rain-slick hillside with her greataxe already raised for attack. Her velocity only gains. She comes to a grinding halt only when she buries her axe into the flank of a bellowing Templar behemoth, legs briefly skidding out from under her as she throws the entirety of her weight into a vicious _swing_ that knocks them both back. Solas is appalled when the thing lashes a hulking arm out and narrowly misses her head.

It takes a painfully slow minute for the rest of their party to catch up and take out the rest.

“You should have waited,” Solas chastises once the battle is over. “There are safer ways to descend a mountain than _sprinting_.”

“Yeah, but then I wouldn’t have the momentum.” She gives a teasing clap to the back of his shoulder. “I am five-foot-two, my friend. ‘Momentum and leverage’ are necessary strategies.”

Solas is starkly horrified. “What if you _tripped?_ Or-!”

She cuts him off with a burst of laughter. “Oh, babe.” She smiles like he just told some grand joke. “Dalish fighters don’t _trip_.”

 

* * *

 

Solas holds onto a glimmer of hope that his suggestions will carry more weight now that he and Lavellan have entered into a romantic relationship. At the very least, she can’t possibly listen to him any _less._

As she frequently reminds him, though, he is very bad at assumptions.

Solas is engrossed in a new translation project in the rotunda when Lilith calls his name from the second floor of the library. He looks up to see her leaning dangerously over the railing. The gold of her eyes glitters. _“Heads up!”_

He realizes what she’s about to do the moment she swings her legs over the handrail.

“ _Vhenan.”_ She wouldn’t dare. “Do _not_ -”

She jumps, and lands squarely on Solas’ desk.

Papers scatter onto the floor; tea spills; a pair of candles topple over and set the rug on fire. Dorian is leaning over the railing above yelling something very colorful while Solas tries desperately to recover from a possible heart attack.

An appalled Leliana shouts down from the rookery, voice echoing far above her. “Inquisitor! Are you alright?”

“I stuck it,” Lilith whispers, triumphant. “I stuck the landing.”

She's banned from the rotunda for two weeks straight.

Solas is sure she has never been more proud.


End file.
